FireEye to sell products business for $1.2B, will rebrand as Mandiant

(Reuters) — U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye said on Wednesday it would sell its products business, including the FireEye name, to a consortium led by private-equity firm Symphony Technology Group for $1.2 billion in cash.

The deal will separate FireEye’s network, email and cloud security products from its cyber forensics unit, Mandiant Solutions.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter, the company said.

FireEye, one of the largest cybersecurity firms in the United States, also said its board had approved a share buyback program of up to $500 million.

The company originally acquired Mandiant, founded by Kevin Mandia, who became FireEye’s chief executive, for about $1 billion in early 2014. Mandiant will return as an independent company, focused on cyber-incident response and cybersecurity testing, and will be publicly traded following the deal.

“With the separation, you get simplicity, you get focus. Together we’re in a lot of markets,” Mandia said in an interview with Reuters about the sale. “A lot of it really was resource constraint.”

“FireEye can’t do everything,” he added.

The purchase of FireEye marks a major turning point in the rapidly evolving U.S. cybersecurity marketplace. The still nascent industry has seen numerous companies bought and merged in just the past several years.

In March, Symphony also purchased McAfee’s enterprise business division for about $4 billion. Last year, chipmaker Broadcom purchased the enterprise business of Symantec, another major industry player, for about $10.7 billion.

FireEye is one of the best-known firms in the industry because it has handled many of the most high-profile hacking incidents in U.S. history.